


Walking with Spirits

by stella binaria (curseofpandora)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Elemental spirits, Han Jisung | Han-centric, Jisung & Minho & Seungmin & Jeongin are best friends, Jisung can relate, M/M, Multi, Other, Supernatural occurrences, and suddenly find yourself in the middle of an existential crisis, summer holidays gone astray, when you expect to just hang with the bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curseofpandora/pseuds/stella%20binaria
Summary: Jisung expected to have a fun vacation by the sea with his best friends.Emphasis on 'expected', because the events of one particular night are about to shake up his life in ways he never dared to imagine.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han & Kim Seungmin, Han Jisung | Han & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han & Yang Jeongin | I.N
Kudos: 4
Collections: Jilix Ficfest





	Walking with Spirits

  
There are a handful of things Han Jisung was genuinely scared of. Being alone for some time usually didn’t count as one of them. But on this particular evening, in this particular place and this particular weather, he was willing to reconsider it.

A couple of hours earlier, he had reassured his best friends he’d be just fine staying back at the beach house they had rented to spend their summer holidays in. The look Minho had given him in response was telling, but he proceeded to shove them out of the door anyway, urging them to bring him back some chocolate ice cream and hurry up so they’d be able to return safely before it got too dark outside.

  
  
Little did he know that a storm was brewing on the horizon.

Not even half an hour later, he heard the first thunder rumble in the distance.  
‘This is fine. I’m safe in here. Nothing to worry about,’ he kept repeating in his mind whenever another thunder resounded.  
  
Soon enough, lightning began to brighten up the otherwise darkened sky. The thunder grew louder and closer, giving him goosebumps.  
Thunderstorms were never something he was happy about, even more so when he had to deal with them alone. 

But he was almost an adult now. He shouldn’t be so scared of something as easily explained as this weather phenomenon, right?  
  
He had just about convinced himself that he’d be okay by just snuggling up under a blanket until the worst was over when he heard the sound, though. 

  
Something that made no sense at all, considering the noise of the thunderstorm outside. Something that sparked his curiosity so much that he threw off the blanket and sat up on the sofa, ears perked.  
Jisung listened more closely again, figuring he had imagined it.  
  
  
But no, it was there.   
  
  
A melody being sung by voices that he could only describe as otherworldly. Almost as if the elements themselves were coming together to create a symphony of destruction and rebirth. 

  
It was at that moment, that a lightning bolt hit the skeletal remains of some driftwood on the beach not too far away from the beach house.  
  
  
Jisung had moved closer to the big window facing the seaside to figure out where this melody originated from. What he saw truly defied any reasonable explanation he could have come up with, though.

In the heavy rain that whipped against the windows, he saw two people gathered near the driftwood that was engulfed in flames.  
One of them stood at the edge of the water, their feet submerged in it and their long hair barely moving in the wind.

As if that wasn’t odd enough, the other person seemed to levitate above the ground in perfect stillness.

A third; Jisung realised in shock; was sitting on the burning wood, unbothered by the flames surrounding them. 

A fourth one, however, rose directly out of the sand, but their back was turned towards Jisung. It almost felt as if their appearance was blurred while the others were as clearly visible as if they stood directly in front of the window. Strange, considering that the other three were much farther away from his position than the fourth was.

  
What took him even more off guard, though, was when a wave of sand formed seemingly out of nowhere and extinguished the fire while the ominous melody was joined by a voice much deeper than the rest. One so deep even, that it felt like the earth itself was shifting upon its command.

  
Whatever fear Jisung had felt initially was now replaced by the need to figure out what was going on out there.  
  
  
The last person kept moving towards the others, the sand almost clinging to their feet as they walked. The deep voice; probably belonging to them, Jisung figured; so loud by now that the others were barely audible anymore.

Jisung had no idea why, but the others appeared to be intimidated by that. The one on the driftwood disappeared in what Jisung could only describe as a flash, closely followed by the one in the water retreating so far back into it that they vanished below the surface. 

That left only the airborne one and the one standing in the sand, but the former became invisible not much later. 

The initial melody; more of a battle between the voices than a euphony really; had shifted into a lament at that point. It spoke to Jisung in ways he couldn’t describe. Tugging at his heartstrings like no song ever had before. And he knew deep in his core that this melody and the voice singing it would haunt him till the day he took his last breath. 

His eyes were still glued to the back of the last remaining person on the beach, but he was so lost in the melody that he only realised they were turning towards him once their eyes actually met. 

Previously blurry, they suddenly appeared perfectly visible. And the look they sent Jisung was as hostile as they got. Animosity might even be too weak a word to describe the nature of the gaze Jisung was facing for a full minute there. But then they were gone as well, swallowed by the sand as if they had never been there at all.

Not much later, the sky cleared up again, barely any sign of the odd occurrences left. But the charred remains of the driftwood were everything Jisung needed to be sure he hadn’t imagined this.  
  
Needless to say that his curiosity was sparked. He had no idea how to tell his friends about the events when they’d get back, but he knew in his heart that he wouldn’t find any peace before he had looked into the history of this place and figured out what was going on there.

~🗻~  
  


  
Late afternoon had turned into evening by the time Minho, Seungmin and Jeongin finally returned to the beach house.  
  
In the meantime, Jisung had done his best to keep his mind off of the fact that he was alone in the middle of nowhere. But his plan to look up anything he could find on the legends surrounding this region had remained just a plan. After all, the splotchy bit of reception they were able to get out here had been killed by the lightning strike earlier. And that included the electricity in the entire house, too.  
  
He had no idea where the fuse box was, so he did his best to find some candles and matches to have some light at least.  
  
And then he waited. 

  
And recalled the scene he had witnessed earlier. 

  
Over and over again.

  
None of it made any sense; at least not from the point of view of someone who didn’t believe in the supernatural; but how was he supposed to explain it then? Had he hallucinated? Had his brain been affected by the loud noise and electric current somehow?

  
Being forced to be alone out here with no way to look into it more and the constant influx of thoughts that were getting wilder and wilder…  
It was slowly but surely driving him mad. 

  
So the sudden noise of tyres on gravel in the driveway was a welcome distraction, heralding the return of his long-lost friends.  
Never had Jisung been happier to hear their bickering. 

He greeted them by the door, pulling them into hugs one after the other and proceeded to remain by their side until they had taken their shoes off and moved into the living room again.  
  
If that hadn’t irritated them yet, his wide-eyed gaze at them certainly did the trick.  
  


“Jisungie? Are you okay? Why are the lights out in here?” Seungmin wondered as he took a closer look at his friend and gestured at the surroundings.  
  
  
“There was a thunderstorm earlier. A lightning bolt hit some driftwood nearby and probably overloaded the power grid with its current. I had no idea where the fuse box was to see if I could get it to work again, but there were some candles at least, so I lit those up and-” Jisung rattled off without realising how the concern on his friends’ faces became more obvious with every further word he spoke.  
  


Jeongin closed the distance between them in a heartbeat and pulled Jisung into his arms.  
“It’s okay, hyung. We know about the storm. That’s why we’re so late. The street was barely visible once we had loaded the groceries into the car, so we decided to sit out the worst of it in there,” he explained calmly in an attempt to help Jisung feel more relaxed again.

Seungmin closed in on them, too, and patted Jisung’s shoulder. “We would have called, but the reception was nonexistent, so there was no chance. I’m sorry about that, Hannie.”

  
Jisung just shook his head stubbornly, though. “I told you guys to go, so nothing to be sorry for. This storm was beyond our power, Minnie…”  
  
Minho had been watching with relief how their presence alone made Jisung calmer already. But he figured a little bonus wouldn’t hurt, so he produced the ice cream container out of one of their bags and shoved it into Jisung’s hands. 

“The good news: We got your ice cream, sunshine. How about you and Innie stay in here and dig in already while Minnie and I see if we can find the fuse box and get this thing to work again? We really need to get the fridge working again, otherwise, we’ll have a big problem with all of this food…” he pointed out, throwing a worried glance down at the bags on the floor.

  
“That sounds like a good plan. I’ll get the torchlight from your bag, hyung!”, Seungmin agreed and scurried off towards the bedroom they all shared.

  
In the meantime, Jeongin had gone to the kitchen to grab some spoons and returned to find Jisung already huddled up on the sofa with his trusty blanket.  
“Here, hyung. Do you want me to get your plushie?” he asked as he handed the older his spoon. 

Jisung shook his head no, but when Jeongin sat down and scooted closer, he immediately snuggled into his side, making sure not to cling to the youngest too much, though. He might have craved the reassurance of knowing his people were back by his side, but he didn’t have to ask for more physical contact than they were willing to tolerate.

  
“Thank you, Innie.”

Jeongin just hummed in response, savouring another spoonful of the ice cream.

A few minutes later, the lights in the living room flickered to life again and the monotonous buzz of the fridge returned.

Jisung felt a lot safer immediately, even more so when Minho and Seungmin walked back into the room, too, dusting themselves off.

“I hope you saved us some of the ice cream, Sungie. Minnie and I deserve it after fighting these spiders to get to the fuse box…”, Minho jested as he dropped down next to Jisung. 

The latter held out the container without hesitation, an encouraging smile lighting up his entire face. "Thank you, my heroes! Dig in! It’s really good."

They had spent the remainder of the night talking about this and that, the impending changes that Minho’s graduation would bring, their intention to find a place together; a promise they had made with each other back when they were still in their early teens; just about anything under the sun really.  
  
What they didn’t talk about, however, were the strange occurrences from the afternoon. Jisung just didn’t find the right moment to bring it up. And the more time passed, the less pressing it seemed. 

  
So what if he had seen things he couldn’t quite explain? Perhaps he had just been too tired and scared to think normally and he had mistaken perfectly normal objects for something else? Perhaps the melody had just been in his head. 

His mind had a habit of surprising him with random music when he least expected it, so that wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary.  
  


In the end, he pushed the thoughts about the afternoon far into the back of his mind for the sake of enjoying the time with his best friends as much as he could.  
  
But later, as they had all gone to bed and were drifting off to sleep, Jisung heard the initial melody again. 

Fainter. A lot more subtle and alluring than before. But it was there.

“Guys? Can you hear that?”, he asked into the darkness of the room, not sure if anyone was still awake.

Seungmin’s voice was barely more than a whisper when he replied. “It’s just the wind, Ji. We’re here with you. Don’t worry~”

So, Jisung closed his eyes and fell into a fitful sleep eventually.


End file.
